October, 04 2021, 01:11pm EDT
With Oil Spills in California and Gulf, Biden Administration Plows Ahead with Illegal Lease Sale
Interior sets Gulf lease sale date of Nov. 17, 2021.
WASHINGTON
Today the Biden administration confirmed its plansto offer 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas leasing, a plan Earthjustice states is illegal and contrary to the administration's pledge to act on climate. The notice of the sale was officially entered into the Federal Register today.
Over the weekend, a pipeline off Huntington Beach, California ruptured spilling more than 126,000 gallons of oil, closing beaches, leaving dead fish and seabirds in its wake, and decimating a fragile wetlands ecosystem. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard continues to track oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico from oil infrastructure damaged during Hurricane Ida. Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office published a report that shows Interior does not adequately conduct subsea inspections of offshore pipelines or ensure that oil companies properly decommission older pipelines.
The Biden administration will be holding the oil and gas lease auction on Nov. 17, 2021. On Aug. 31, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit in federal court in the District of Columbia against Interior and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on behalf of Healthy Gulf, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and the Center for Biological Diversity challenging Interior's decision to hold lease sale 257. The lawsuit argues that the 2017 environmental analysis the Biden Administration is relying on to hold the sale is outdated. Among other things, it ignores new information showing the rising dangers from pipeline leaks.
The following is a statement from Brettny Hardy, Earthjustice attorney:
"The Biden administration's decision to open up the Gulf to more drilling is not only hypocritical to their stated goals to act on climate, it is illegal. The administration is relying on an environmental analysis that is deeply flawed and outdated. Plaintiffs alerted Interior to its many problems, and yet, they are plowing ahead with a Trump administration plan. This is a continuation of the prior administration's reckless and unlawful behavior, all while the real repercussions of offshore drilling are apparent by the unfolding oil disasters in both the Pacific and the Gulf. We're deeply disappointed by the Biden administration's failure to follow the law and to fulfill its promises. So we will see them in court."
Background:
The environmental analysis of the proposed sale relies on improper modeling to conclude that not having the lease sale will result in more greenhouse gases. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected this approach last year. In August, a federal district court in Alaska found that the same conclusion was deeply flawed after the Department of the Interior tried to rely on it again for a large oil development project in Alaska's Western Arctic.
The Interior Department last looked at the environmental impacts of a Gulf lease sale in 2017. Since Interior completed its environmental analysis, significant new information has emerged that demonstrates, among other things, the dire state of the climate crisis and the potential for increased harm to endangered species, including the Rice's whale, one of the most endangered whales on the planet, that is only found in the Gulf of Mexico.
Last week, the Center for American Progress released a paper that finds that oil and gas interests gave a combined $4.5 million to the campaigns of the 14 governors and attorneys general that sued the Biden administration over the leasing pause put in place shortly after President Biden entered office.
Interior's own estimates show that the sale could lead to the production of up to 1.12 billion barrels of oil and 4.2 trillion cubic feet of gas over the next 50 years, which will contribute substantial greenhouse gas emissions.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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Columbia Students File Civil Rights Complaint After Arrests, National Guard Threat
"The violent repression we're facing as peaceful anti-war protesters is appalling."
Apr 25, 2024
A day after Columbia University officials warned it may call on the National Guard to remove nonviolent student protesters who have been occupying campus lawns since last week in solidarity with Gaza, advocacy group Palestine Legal on Thursday filed a federal civil rights complaint demanding an investigation into the school's "discriminatory treatment of Palestinian students and their allies."
The school discriminated against pro-Palestinian protesters last week when President Minouche Shafik summoned New York Police Department officers in riot gear to arrest more than 100 students, said Palestine Legal.
The complaint details how the escalation against students, who have set up an encampment on campus to demand Columbia divest from companies that work with the Israeli government and to support calls for a cease-fire in Gaza, is part of a monthslong pattern of the university's targeting of pro-Palestinian students.
According to Palestine Legal, students of all backgrounds who have demanded an end to Israel's U.S.-backed massacre of Palestinians in Gaza "have been the target of extreme anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and Islamophobic harassment, including receiving multiple death threats, being harassed for wearing keffiyehs or hijab, doxxed, stereotyped, being treated differently by high-ranking administrators including... Shafik, an attack with a chemical agent that led to at least 10 students requiring hospitalization and dozens of others, including a Palestinian student, seeking medical attention, and more."
Columbia student Maryam Alwan, who Palestine Legal is representing in the complaint to the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, said the university has "utterly failed to protect [her] from racism and abuse."
"Beyond that, the university has also played a role in this repression by having me arrested and suspended for peacefully protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza," said Alwan. "The violent repression we're facing as peaceful anti-war protesters is appalling. Palestinian students at Columbia deserve justice and accountability, not only for Israel's decadeslong oppression and violence against our people, but for the racism and discrimination we've experienced here on Columbia's campus."
Palestine Legal is representing four students in the case, as well as Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, which was suspended from the campus late last year after holding anti-war protests.
The group called Columbia's threat to call in the National Guard "gravely concerning."
"Columbia's vicious crackdown on student protests calling for Palestinian freedom amidst an ongoing genocide should alarm us all. Students have always been at the forefront of the most pressing social issues of the day," said Palestine Legal staff attorney Sabiya Ahamed.
College campuses have been the sites of frequent pro-Palestinian protests since October, and the NYPD's crackdown on Columbia students last week galvanized students at universities across the country.
The Biden administration has said little about the student demonstrations, but President Joe Biden referred to them broadly as "antisemitic protests" this week.
"We urge federal civil rights officials to do what Columbia has disgracefully failed to," said Ahamed. "Ensure the rights of Palestinian and allied students are protected at a moment when their voices are most essential."
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Top G20 Ministers Back 2% Wealth Tax for Global Billionaires
"It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods."
Apr 25, 2024
Ministers from four major economies on Thursday called for a 2% wealth tax targeting the world's billionaires—who currently only pay up to 0.5% of their wealth in personal income tax—to "invest in public goods such as health, education, the environment, and infrastructure."
Fernando Haddad, Brazil's finance minister; Svenja Schulze, Germany's minister for economic cooperation and development; Enoch Godongwana, South Africa's finance minister; Carlos Cuerpo, Spain's minister of economy, trade, and business; and MarÃa Jesús Montero, Spain's first vice president and finance minister, made their case in an opinion piece for The Guardian.
"The argument behind such tax is straightforward: We need to enhance the ability of our tax systems to fulfill the principle of fairness, such that contributions are in line with the capacity to pay," they explained. "Persisting loopholes in the system imply that high-net-worth individuals can minimize their income taxes."
"What the international community managed to do with the global minimum tax on multinational companies, it can do with billionaires."
Brazil, Germany, and South Africa are all Group of 20 members while Spain is a permanent guest. The ministers noted that "Brazil has made the fight against hunger, poverty, and inequality a priority of its G20 presidency, a priority that German development policy also pursues and that Spain has ambitiously addressed domestically and globally."
"By directing two-thirds of total expenditure on social services and wage support, as well as by calibrating tax policy administration, South Africa continues to target a progressive tax and fiscal agenda that confronts the country's legacy of income and wealth inequality," they wrote.
The ministers continued:
It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods. One of the key instruments that governments have for promoting more equality is tax policy. Not only does it have the potential to increase the fiscal space governments have to invest in social protection, education, and climate protection. Designed in a progressive way, it also ensures that everyone in society contributes to the common good in line with their ability to pay. A fair share contribution enhances social welfare.
With exactly these goals in mind, Brazil brought a proposal for a global minimum tax on billionaires to the negotiation table of the world's major economies for the first time. It is a necessary third pillar that complements the negotiations on the taxation of the digital economy and on a minimum corporate tax of 15% for multinationals. The renowned economist Gabriel Zucman sketched out how this might work. Currently, there are about 3,000 billionaires worldwide. The tax could be designed as a minimum levy equivalent to 2% of the wealth of the superrich. It would not apply to billionaires who already contribute a fair share in income taxes. However, those who manage to avoid paying income tax would be obliged to contribute more towards the common good.
The five ministers cited estimates suggesting that "such a tax would potentially unlock an additional $250 billion in annual tax revenues globally—this is roughly the amount of economic damages caused by extreme weather events last year."
"Of course, the argument that billionaires can easily shift their fortunes to low-tax jurisdictions and thus avoid the levy is a strong one. And this is why such a tax reform belongs on the agenda of the G20," they added. "International cooperation and global agreements are key to making such tax effective. What the international community managed to do with the global minimum tax on multinational companies, it can do with billionaires."
Guardian economics editor Larry Elliott reported Thursday that "Zucman is now fleshing out the technical details of a plan that will again be discussed by the G20 in June. France has indicated support for a wealth tax and Brazil has been encouraged that the U.S., while not backing a global wealth tax, did not oppose it."
The French economist told Elliott that "billionaires have the lowest effective tax rate of any social group. Having people with the highest ability to pay tax paying the least—I don't think anybody supports that."
Except the billionaires, of course. "I don't want to be naive. I know the superrich will fight," Zucman added. "They have a hatred of taxes on wealth. They will lobby governments. They will use the media they own."
A few months ago, no one wanted to talk int. taxes, let alone on the super rich. Now we have a process (#G20), finance ministers (\ud83c\udde7\ud83c\uddf7 \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 \ud83c\uddff\ud83c\udde6 \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddf8 & others) supporting it, \ud83c\udde9\ud83c\uddea in part & everyone agreeing that proceeds should help fund climate and dev: https://t.co/ZldF557pAL— (@)
The ministers' opinion piece follows the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank's Spring Meetings last week, during which anti-poverty campaigners pressured the largest economies to address inequality with policies like taxing the superrich and to pour resources into the global debt and climate crises.
"The IMF and World Bank say that tackling inequality is a priority but in the same breath back policies that drive up the divide between the rich and the rest," Kate Donald, head of Oxfam International's Washington D.C. office, said last week. "Ordinary people struggle more and more every day to make up for cuts to the public funding of healthcare, education, and transportation. This high-stakes hypocrisy has to end."
Oxfam America policy lead Rebecca Riddell declared Thursday that "extreme inequality stands in the way of solving our most urgent global challenges. We need to tax the ultrawealthy."
"Read this brilliant new op-ed on the case for a global tax on billionaires, by ministers from Brazil, Germany, South Africa, and Spain," Riddell added, posting the piece on social media.
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"This suffering does not advance any rational policy goal," said the advocacy groups. "It merely exists to further the political goal of deterrence, which is cruel, inhumane, and misguided."
Apr 25, 2024
Citing ample evidence of human rights abuses in U.S. immigration detention centers, 200 advocacy groups on Thursday demanded that the Biden administration reverse course on a planned expansion of detention facilities and said President Joe Biden's "further entrenching" of the government's reliance on detaining migrants marks "an utter betrayal" of his campaign promises.
The president's signing of a spending bill last month provided $3.4 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), clearing the way for the agency to make space to jail 41,500 immigrants per day in facilities across the country.
After Biden campaigned on ending the use of for-profit detention centers, said the groups, he took office at a time when fewer than 15,000 people were being held in immigration detention facilities—which gave him "a remarkable opportunity to wind down a wasteful and abusive system."
But after the president's 2023 and 2024 budget requests signaled an intention of reducing detention funding—with ICE itself recommending that numerous facilities be closed due to "critical staffing shortages that have led to safety risks and unsanitary living conditions"—Biden last year requested supplemental detention funding as commentators and Republicans in Congress hammered the administration for allowing so-called "chaos" at the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Your FY2025 budget request sought funding for 34,000 beds instead of the 25,000 sought in the two previous cycles," wrote the groups, including Amnesty International USA, the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), and the Texas Civil Rights Project. "The result is unsurprising: the FY2024 spending bill you signed provides ICE $3.4 billion to jail an average of 41,500 immigrants per day, historically high funding surpassing all four years of the Trump administration."
The groups, which provide legal aid and other assistance to people who have been detained as migrants, said many of their clients "carry lifelong scars from the mistreatment and dehumanization they endured because of the United States' reliance on detention, mostly through private prisons and county jails."
The administration is seeking to expand a system, said the groups, in which the jails and prisons used have been found to "operate under insufficient standards."
The organizations cited a 2018 ACLU reportthat found inadequate medical care contributed to the deaths of more than half of the detained immigrants who died in custody between December 2015-April 2017; a 2021 case in which an LGBTQ+ man reported "physical and homophobic verbal abuse" at a facility in Louisiana; and the finding by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) that the use of solitary confinement in detention centers "regularly meets the United Nations' definition of torture."
Biden signed the spending bill two weeks after Charles Daniel, a 61-year-old migrant from Trinidad and Tobago, died at a detention center operated by the private contractor GEO Group after being held in solitary confinement for four years. ICE has placed people in solitary confinement over 14,000 times in the last five years, according to PHR, for an average of 27 days each; U.N. experts say exceeding 15 days in solitary confinement constitutes torture.
"This suffering does not advance any rational policy goal," said the groups on Thursday. "Detention does not provide an efficient or ethical means of border processing, and it certainly does not indicate to migrants that they are welcome in the United States. It merely exists to further the political goal of deterrence, which is cruel, inhumane, and misguided—as even the most punitive forms of detention have been proven not to deter people from seeking safety or a better life."
Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks government data, found that as of April 7, more than 61% of ICE detainees have no criminal record, while "many more have only minor offenses, including traffic violations."
"Increasing the incarceration of immigrants is a grave mistake," said the groups, "and we urgently implore you to reverse course."
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